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Helicopter Safety
Meeting Our Common Goals
Wendy Tadros, Chair
Transportation Safety Board of Canada
3rd International Helicopter Safety Symposium
Montreal, Quebec
29 September 2009
The Path Forward
Collecting and analyzing data
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Finding safety risks
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Developing solutions to reduce risks
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Our common goal:
Increased helicopter safety
Presentation Outline
• About the TSB
• Accident investigation findings and challenges
• How industry, regulators and accident
investigators can work more closely.
About the TSB
• Independent organization investigating marine,
pipeline, rail and air occurrences
• Finds out what happened and why
• Makes recommendations to address safety
deficiencies
• Not a regulator or a court
Flying Helicopters in Canada
Canada’s vast territory offers very diverse flying
challenges
• Mountainous terrain in Western Canada
• Challenging weather: Arctic, North Atlantic
• Diverse missions: firefighting, medevac, helilogging, offshore oil platforms
• Flying in very remote, sparsely populated areas
Helicopter Accident Statistics
Helicopter Occurrences and Flight Hours, in Canada
Year
Total
Occurrence Rate
(occurrences per
100,000 flight hours)
Flight Hours
1999
67
609,000
11.00
2000
76
604,000
12.58
2001
70
604,000
11.59
2002
77
578,000
13.32
2003
72
590,000
12.20
2004
68
610,000
11.15
2005
69
591,000
11.68
2006
81
633,000
12.80
2007
66
675,000
9.78
2008
60
735,000
8.16
2009
33
N/A
0.00
Helicopter Accident Statistics (cont’d)
• Steady stream of helicopter wreckage in
Vancouver
• Helicopter accidents account for:
– 24% of TSB air investigations
– 32% of TSB air investigations in Western Canada
How the TSB communicates safety
Early and often
• TSB communicates with those who can make change as
soon as safety deficiencies are found
– e.g. Sikorsky S-92A accident. TSB alerted
manufacturer early on in investigation of broken
studs.
– Sikorsky responded immediately with Service Bulletin
to replace studs, supported by FAA AD
– Sikorsky also changed its flight manuals
Helicopter-related safety communications
In the past 10 years, the TSB issued:
• 4 recommendations
• 32 safety advisories
• 16 safety information letters
Safety communications covered a wide range of
themes:
• Loss of power
• Loss of control
• Striking objects
Helicopter-related safety communications
(cont’d)
• Component malfunctions occurring before
scheduled maintenance/overhaul intervals based
on hours flown
• Helicopters being operated with many more
cycles per hour than originally anticipated
• Manufacturers responded positively to reduce
risks of early component malfunctions
Helicopter-related safety communications
(cont’d)
Occupant safety
•
•
•
•
Survival equipment installations
Survival equipment requirements
Locator beacons
Use of safety harnesses
In general, safety communications positively received
TSB monitors and assesses progress on safety
communications
Working together to increase safety
• Safety management systems (SMS)
• Data and image recorders
• Better information-sharing
Safety Management Systems (SMS)
• Canada adopted SMS in 2005 in staged
approach
• Helicopter operators scheduled to have SMS in
place by 2010
• Change most effective when it comes from
within
Safety Management Systems (cont’d)
• SMS will be a valuable asset to a company but
will require a shift in the way it thinks of safety
– Risk assessment
– Non-punitive reporting
Safety Management Systems (cont’d)
Risk assessment
• Integrating safety into daily operations
• Gain a full understanding of risks
• Take action to prevent accidents
Result:
Reduced downtime, lower repair costs
Safety Management Systems (cont’d)
Non-punitive reporting
• Gather information on safety risks from those
who know them the best: employees
• This information vital in developing accident
prevention measures
• Consider sharing this information to increase
overall industry safety
Data and Image Recorders
• Lack of flight data, cockpit voice or image data
makes safety investigations very difficult
• Many smaller aircraft, including helicopters do
not have them
• TSB and NTSB recommendations to install
image recorders aboard aircraft
Data and Image Recorders (cont’d)
• Some manufacturers making them available
• Operators installing them voluntarily
• Canadian law protects recorded data
confidentiality for safety investigation purposes
• Data confidentiality protection should be
adopted internationally
Protection of Recordings
• In Canada, on-board recordings can only used
to further safety investigations
• Important to protect confidentiality of all
recordings
Sharing Information Internationally
• Investigators and regulators need not wait until
accident in their country to improve safety
• Analyze occurrences in other countries to
determine proactively if safety action is
warranted
• ECCAIRS: promising information-sharing tool
– TSB studying its use
Sharing Information Internationally (cont’d)
• TSB looking at improving quality and scope of
information on minor occurrences
• Examining data currently held for opportunities
to improve safety
Improving Helicopter Safety
Collecting data
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Finding safety risks
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Developing solutions based on findings
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TEAMWORK at every step
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Improved helicopter safety